


Perfectly Happy

by LadyStrallan



Category: A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder - Lutvak/Freedman
Genre: 1910s, Anorexia, Body Image, Drabble, Eating Disorders, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25258903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyStrallan/pseuds/LadyStrallan
Summary: Sibella wasn't happy. Three months after marrying Lionel, she reflects on their marriage and her own self image. Maybe just maybe if she lost enough weight she would finally be happy. And Lionel too. Perfectly happy.
Relationships: Sibella Hallward/Lionel Holland, Sibella Hallward/Monty Navarro
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	Perfectly Happy

Sibella looked at herself in the standing mirror in the corner of her private boudoir. It had been three months since she had returned from her honeymoon with Lionel. Three torturous months of dry, detestable Lionel. It wasn’t all bad, she convinced herself. After all, he was still the man with the motorcar that she had thought she was in love with. Things with Lionel could never be bad forever. Everything always works out in the end, doesn’t it? _Yes, maybe, perhaps, possibly._

She let out a deep breath, watching the front of her corset swell slightly. She studied her features in the mirror. She looked tired. Dark, slightly puffy bags under her eyes. Her lips dry, instead of their usual cherry-coloured shine. She tried on a smile, broad with teeth, just to see what it would look like. This wasn’t her usual smile; the one she would put on in Monty’s bachelor apartment, or when she was trying on perspective jewelry at the boutiques in town. This one was empty. Every pearly white tooth seemed to reflect her lacklustre, unglowing skin. She closed her lips. Her gaze raked over her frame; floating from her face, to her collarbone, to her breasts, continuing all the way to her bare feet. She wasn’t wearing much. Only a petticoat and corset. It was her new favourite corset, in fact. Peach satin, edged with the lightest pink lace; slight brocade detailing. It had been a wedding gift from Monty. A private one at that. Her hands smoothed over the fabric, then came to rest at her hips.

She looked at her face again. _Was she happy?_ She thought to herself. _Definitely not._ She was fully wed to— _sigh—_ Lionel, and she didn’t think he was perfectly happy either. At least, he wasn’t perfectly happy _with her._ Lionel had a sort of fantasy, of what he wanted Sibella to be. She checked some of the boxes already. She was charming, the right amount intelligent. But when Lionel looked at her, at her body, he didn’t look how Monty did. Whereas Monty’s Sibella was a Greek statue, Lionel’s was a portrait that was slightly askew. When Lionel looked at her, it was with an eye searching for flaws, for features to tweak. He told her too, what he thought could be ‘improved’. To begin with, he once commanded her to stop wearing a certain hairstyle at once, because it made her look whoreish, and it would ruin his reputation, and hers for that matter, if people thought she was a whore.

His biggest trouble with her, though, was her weight. Sibella had never been fat, at least she thought she hadn’t. Her corsets had always fit fine, were able to lace to the fashionable standard. But not soon after she met Lionel, the petticoats started to fit tighter. Maybe they always had, maybe she was just now noticing it. Her mother suggested stress as a cause, three days before her wedding, when she mentioned her struggle to fit into one of her more fitted slips.

 _Yes, a classic case of premarital panic_.

Perhaps she had been apprehensive for a reason. No matter, there was no way of changing anything now. She decided to try with Lionel; maybe if she could be what he wanted, then they would be perfectly happy. _Yes, maybe, perhaps, possibly._ So, she decided to take his bits of advice; _you mustn’t have dessert, perhaps you should take a walk in the garden, ask the maid to tighten your corset_.

 _Of course_ , she would think. _Common sense_.

She didn’t even notice when _don’t have another tea biscuit_ became _you’ll be perfectly fine without lunch, it’s only a day trip_.

_Yes, perfectly fine._

Eventually, real Lionel didn’t have to warn her anymore. The Lionel in her head would remind her how her thighs would look if she ate any pastries that day. When the clothes became looser, though, when she would look at her newly thinner arms in the mirror, she would gain a sense of pride. This wasn’t for Lionel anymore, she told herself, this was for her. For the feeling she had when the material of her sleeves hung looser than they had the week before. For the new, smaller, corsets she would reward herself with when inch after inch disappeared off of her waist. It wasn’t always that perfect euphoric feeling, though. It was the pain of an empty stomach for the second day in a row. It was the ever present chill. It was the dizzy feeling when she would stand up too quickly. And sometimes, those dreaded sometimes, it was the corset fitting tighter again.

She met her own eyes in the mirror. Then, again, she examined her body from head to toe. There had been improvement, there had been with Lionel too. But it wasn’t perfect. There was still fat to pull and prod and try to wish away. This wasn’t her body, she thought. Not her real one. Her real one was impossibly thin, incredibly dainty, astonishingly petite, deliciously gaunt. And when she finally got there, she would be perfectly happy. _Yes, maybe, perhaps, possibly._

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, lovelies! This is my first time really doing a drabble. I wrote this for myself mostly since I have personally struggled with body image and I really relate to and love Sibella. I hope you enjoyed this fic :) <3
> 
> \- LadyStrallan :)


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